The Education of Dee Dee Ricks Airs Tonight

In 2007, when she was 39, Dee Dee Ricks was diagnosed with breast cancer. A successful (and stunning) head-hunter for hedge funds, Ricks had access to the best medical care. She quickly decided to have a double mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy, to treat her aggressive, HER2-positive cancer. At the same time, this single mother of two boys—her youngest was just two and a half at the time of her diagnosis—consulted a plastic surgeon who performed breast-reconstruction surgery. Ricks is unapologetic about how important it was for her to feel both healthy and beautiful at the end of her treatment. As Ricks told Allure for a story in our October issue, "My first and greatest concern was my long term health and my future. I was willing to do the double mastectomy, but I was not going to settle for being maimed like some of the images I had seen of women on the internet. I was a young, single woman, and I intended to date and enjoy sex. I wanted to feel good about my body, and I wanted my breasts to look normal—better than normal."

You can follow Ricks's story, chronicled in a documentary by journalist Perri Peltz called The Education Of Dee Dee Ricks that airs tonight on HBO. The film follows Ricks' transformation from a high-powered hedge-fund consultant to a philanthropist, and highlights the difference in treatment between women who have health insurance and those who don't. Ricks forms a deep friendship with Cynthia Dodson, a woman also battling cancer without her ample resources.